Car Free Cycling

What a pleasant day it was cycling without motorized traffic from Hyde Park Corner, Westminster along the Thames embankment south of St Paul’s and Bank to the Tower. Transport for London had closed down several roads for the Freewheel event as part of Car Free Day.

The weather was just right, sunny but not too hot. It brought out people who would never usually cycle in that part of the world. I do not know what the official figure was but I estimated that there were about 40,000 – from babies and toddlers in trailer cots, children on trailer bikes – even some with stabilizers to people on in-line skates and unicycles.

It was the first time that I had gone up to town with my son on our cycles. We took the train to Waterloo and it was but a short hop across Westminster to the start of the run. We got to the Tower in moments. He was enthralled.

I had to pop into ITN while I was up there so we cycled into ordinary traffic in London for the first time. My son was amazed to find that the Tower was so close to the Stock Exchange, the Gherkin, and St Paul’s Cathedral. It seemed much quicker than by bus. In fact it was – we overtook several buses.